Sugar and Spice and Everything Tice: Disney Day 2--Epcot

The Hubs and I hit the ground running early on the morning of Day 2 of our trip so that we could get to Epcot as soon as possible. We parked our car in the Epcot parking lot right at 8:00 a.m. and headed to the ticket counter to get our tickets. I was feeling a little anxious about Disney's new FastPass+ program, and I wanted to make sure we got there in time to get everything straightened out. With the old FASTPASS system, the rides that could be FastPassed had machines that dispensed a ticket that assigned an hour-long window of time to return and enjoy the attraction without standing in the standby line. The new FastPass+ system has kiosks around the park where you can preselect your ride times and spread them out throughout the day. For those staying on property and receiving Magic Bands (the new Disney admission system that is replacing their previous Key To The World system), they could go ahead and select their desired FastPass+ attractions up to two months in advance of their trip. For those of us staying off-property, we had to wait until we were in the park and use one of the kiosks. Admittedly, I was a little on the fence about this new system. But having taken advantage of it, it was really nice having the option to chose your ride time instead of just taking what the ticket gives you. Since we were the fifth and sixth people to pass through the 'turnstiles' (which aren't turnstiles any more) we were able to walk right up to a FastPass+ kiosk and receive help from a cast member to set up our times. The rides were categorized with most of the more popular rides being "Tier 1" rides and the rest being "Tier 2." We were allowed to choose one Tier 1 ride and 2 Tier 2 rides. Once we had made our selections, the cast member encouraged us to take a picture of the screen on our phones so we could remember our times. This is what our screen looked like when we were done:

So with FastPass+ in hand (so to speak), we made a beeline for The Land Pavilion to ride Soarin'. We missed out on this ride during our summer trip because the line was over 2 hours long when we got to the park! I couldn't believe it when we were able to walk right up and board the ride with no wait!

This ride is amazing! I literally felt like I was soaring over California! And it was all I could do not to lift my feet at certain points when it really seemed like they would hit a tree or dip into the ocean! Amazing! We were on and off of Soarin' by 9:18 (totally shocking) and made our way to Living With the Land before heading over to use our FastPass+ for the Nemo ride at the Seas Pavilion. We had already seen the aquarium, so once we had ridden Nemo, we checked out the Innoventions building to ride the Sum of All Thrills. Once again, there was NO line, we walked right up and were able to watch the short instructional video and then started building our roller coaster. Then we were able to board a simulator and ride the coaster we had just designed. This might have been my favorite ride of the day, with Soarin' as a close second. (One thing about this ride that I was not expecting is that once they close you into the simulator, your head and face are completely cut off from the rest of your body. I mildly freaked out when I realized I couldn't touch my face at all!) After a quick attempt to Facetime with the kids (why does that never seem to work for me??) we used our next FastPass+ on Mission Space. I was hesitant, but we chose the Orange Track which is more extreme because it actually simulates the G force of taking off in a space shuttle. This ride was really fun, and I found that my concerns of feeling sick afterward were not totally warranted. I felt mildly light-headed exiting the ride, but was fine by the time we had left the building. With several minutes to spare before our FastPass+ time for Test Track, we hopped on Spaceship Earth for a ride through history. That ride is kinda cheesy, but I still love it for some strange reason. Michaelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel is just so amazing to me!

Then it was on to Test Track. We walked right through the FastPass+ gates at the opening of our window of time, and it is just too much fun to walk right past an 80-minute long line! We were ushered right in to a waiting room and then into a design room where we created our own car to be 'tested' on Test Track. I let the Hubs handle most of that. lol

After that, we were taken to the loading area, boarded our car, and temporarily became crash test dummies. This ride was a lot of fun, and I kind of wish we had ridden it again, but the line gets long really fast! This is the picture they took of our car as we were traveling 60+ mph.

Since Chevrolet is the official sponsor of this ride, there were all sort of cars to be looked at after the ride. The Hubs just had to sit in this red sport car--and apparently so did that little girl who hopped right in with him.

After riding Test Track, we had pretty much ridden everything we could and were hungry, so we started eating. And boy, did we eat. I had decided before we left that I wanted to taste something from each of the 10 countries in the World Showcase with counter service spots or food stands. Sadly, Canada only has a table service restaurant, so we were unable to hit all 11 countries. We started in Mexico and made our way clockwise to America. We entered the American Adventures pavilion for the show and got to listen to the Voices of Liberty before entering the theater. This is not to be missed! The Voices of Liberty was a small a capella group of about 9 people, and they were incredible!!! The show about America's past, which is narrated by animatronic Ben Franklin and Mark Twain, was really enjoyable and actually brought a small tear to my eye at the end. Then we stopped in Japan and Morocco for more food.

At this point I was ready for a break from all the eating, so we took a ride on the monorail, enjoyed the Journey to Imagination with Figment, and boarded the quite long Universe of Energy with Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Then we headed to the United Kingdom and finally France. Of course, after all this eating the Hubs had to top it off with an all-American burger and fries!